Rediscovering An Old Hobby

It started back in school, when mind was being trained to express the thoughts formed and stored, in written form. After creating and writing multiple essays and articles, it was an English project in middle school, that got me to write a little more than a 500 word one-page write up; I had hand-written a mini-novella (less than 10000 words) and completed it with hand-drawn illustrations. Looking back at it, I cringe at the plot-line of the story and how the story was fleshed out, but hey-I was a 12 year old who was extremely shy about expressing how she felt and thought, and preferred keeping such work private. The novella, along with others’, was passed around in my section for peer review. And instead of fretting at the idea of other people reading my work, as I normally would have, I approached them for feedback. Why not make the most of this opportunity?

The habit of writing didn’t stop there. The writing continued in the form of short stories, getting drafted whenever I had spare time. These stories, however, never made it beyond the pages of the diaries I filled in- they were my personal bed time stories, and I felt too possessive about sharing them with anyone. In my Harry Potter-obsessed world, where impatience, while waiting for the next novel/movie, was often appeased by re-reading previous books or watching re-runs of the movies, I was introduced to fan-theory debates and fanfictions by a friend. It was exciting; to be able to read more about your favourite characters, to see some of the fan theories come to life in form of a story. It was also exciting to see a stranger, most of the times someone across the globe, who thought the same things I did, and then wrote about it, telling the world that this is how the story should have been. It was only a matter of time before I started writing as well.

And I did. Albeit anonymously. Because fierce need for privacy!

It was fun publishing my ideas on a public platform. Just watching the words flow out of my mind and to the computer screen, lit a spark in me. Days and nights were spent in charting out the next steps, next paragraphs, next words. I never told anyone that I wrote. I even maintained an alias while interacting with people online. Soon, I started receiving feedback on my work, a lot of them encouraging me to keep writing, some talking about the premise of a story, some pointing out the flaws with the grammar/flow of the story, some claiming that I got them to start writing . And I kept going, feeding the reviews to my imagination. The fingers flew across the keyboard, typing out word after word, each chapter being rewritten multiple times.

The number of reads increased, but then so did the other tasks in my life. Commitments were popping up out of nowhere, and due to the demand by the readers on my blog, it was only a matter of time that writing felt more like a task rather than a recreational activity. Soon, I stopped writing.

Stopping the habit of writing affected my writing abilities more than I would care to admit. I can sense the rustiness as I write this. The words and thoughts that flowed so effortlessly back then, are now punctuated more by Ïs this really required, or am I making any sense. The inhibition to share ideas has become stronger over this period- this is an inhibition I need to lose.It’s time to lose the rust, become comfortable with expressing myself-start again. But this time, no hiding.